A “live” TV feed refers to a TV feed source whose content is available only once to a recipient. If the content is not recorded or otherwise saved, the opportunity to watch it is lost. In this scenario, all recipients must watch the content at the same time, at a time set by the entity producing the “live” feed. For example, watching the 6 o'clock news only happens once a day. This is in contrast to “VOD” (video-on-demand) content, where a recipient may request to watch the content at his/her convenience, and may be watched multiple times by different users at different times. For example, ordering a movie from a cable or satellite company is using VOD content. An “off-the-air” TV feed (sometimes also known as “over-the-air”) refers to a source whose content is being broadcast, typically over the air, such as broadcast TV. In this case, an antenna may be used to receive the content.
Conventionally, program information for live TV feeds has been provided through a variety of approaches. One conventional program information solution includes a staff of people dedicated exclusively to gathering programming information for a number of live TV feeds and making such information available to service subscribers in the form of an Electronic Program Guide (EPG) via a TV channel (e.g., The TV Guide Channel), in the form of a printed program guide (e.g., a book, a newspaper, etc) via printed media outlets, and/or in the form of an on-line website (e.g., www.tvguide.com). Another conventional program information solution includes program information displayed upon switching to a new TV channel in a cable TV system (e.g., Time-Warner) or satellite TV system (e.g., DirecTV). Still another conventional program information solution includes a dedicated on-screen EPG carried within and accessible from a respective live TV feed. Service providers such as, for example, DirecTV are able to show program information in a standard manner for all content that they offer because they have control over the information contained in the compressed transport stream of the live TV feed.
Various system implementations that allow service subscribers to view TV channels require sourcing such TV channels from a variety of different live TV feeds. Live TV feeds are defined herein to include a TV content signal comprising one or more TV channels and related programming information. Programming information for a channel includes, but is not limited to, channel name, program title, program start time, program duration, program description, available program language(s), and program parental rating.
Streaming live TV feeds to mobile devices is one example of an application in which it is advantageous and/or typical to offer streaming TV content from two or more different live TV feeds. A shortcoming associated with providing service subscribers with TV channels from a variety of different live TV feeds is the lack of an effective and efficient solution for providing such service subscribers with programming information for such TV channels. These different live TV feeds may be provided via satellite, cable and/or over-the-air. Due to the diverse number of possible sources, there is no single resource for service provider-specific programming information available. More specifically, there is no current solution that provides for automated aggregation of program information dependent upon a prescribed group of live TV feeds being offered by a particular service provider. Some of the conventional program information solutions work well when a single service provider (e.g., network) has control over the content being provided via a single live TV feed, but are limited in their effectiveness when TV channels are sourced from a variety of different live TV feeds. One reason for this is that, conceivably, different instances of streaming live TV feeds (e.g., different customer markets, geographic regions, etc) can each have a different set of live TV feed content.
Therefore, a solution that provides for facilitating aggregation of television programming information from different network feed sources in a manner that overcomes drawbacks associated with conventional approaches for facilitating aggregation of television programming information from different network feed sources would be advantageous, desirable and useful.